Asus ZenFone Zoom review: Best from Asus but not good enough to beat competition

Taiwanese company Asus -- known for its long list of ZenFones (and ZenFone 2s) -- takes its smartphone cameras very seriously. It was after all one of the first companies to launch a phone with laser autofocus -- the ZenFone Laser -- that cost less than Rs 10,000. It was also among the first comp

Taiwanese company Asus -- known for its long list of ZenFones (and ZenFone 2s) -- takes its smartphone cameras very seriously. It was after all one of the first companies to launch a phone with laser autofocus -- the ZenFone Laser -- that cost less than Rs 10,000. It was also among the first companies to launch a phone that came with 13-megapixel rear and front cameras -- the ZenFone Selfie -- and cost under Rs 20,000.

Now with the ZenFone Zoom, Asus is again out with something unique. The ZenFone Zoom is what you can call a true high-end offering from the company in question. And it is a phone firmly focused on camera performance.

Announced in CES 2015, the ZenFone Zoom took a long time coming, but it is finally here. The phone comes with a pretty impressive set of hardware and a close to Rs 40,000 price tag to go along with. Its ticket to fame -- as Asus puts it -- is the fact that it is the world's thinnest 3X optical zoom smartphone. Optical zoom in smartphones isn't a new concept. But, cramming in 3X optical zoom inside a 12mm body certainly is. Asus has no doubt put quite a lot of thought inside this one.

Unfortunately, in the end it doesn't all come together all that well.

Design and build quality

One look and it's pretty clear the ZenFone Zoom is not your typical ZenFone-next-door. It is different, and in a good way that is. It's a Nokia Lumia 1020 meets Samsung Galaxy K Zoom meets ZenFone 2 and we love it. The mash-up is in fact the best thing that ever happened to a ZenFone.

The Zoom has a shell made of leather and bits of metal. The back panel is made of leather and is removable with the microSIM card slot and non-removable battery buried inside. The plush leather gives the Zoom a premium look and feel, reminding you ever so slightly of the LG G4 in hand. The centre of attraction however is the Lumia 1020-like camera hump that houses all the camera hardware. It doesn't stick out as prominently as in Nokia's phone, but it's still very much there. Metal is restricted to the outer frame.

The ZenFone Zoom comes with dedicated camera shutter and video recording buttons on the right side. The volume rocker and power button are placed above them. Meanwhile, the left side is completely vacant. Everything right from button placement to their tactile feedback is spot-on. The front is characteristic ZenFone-style with chunky bezels and lower concentric semi-circles strip.

On the downside, the Zoom isn't a slim phone, neither it is a feather light. At 185 grams and 12mm, it is bulkier and thicker than the Moto X Style, which to some could mean preposterous. You will feel its weight in hand. It is also a little slippery to hold on to. Good thing is that it ships with a wrist strap inside the box.

Display

The ZenFone Zoom comes with a 5.5-inch FullHD IPS display with a 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution and 401ppi pixel density, much like the ZenFone 2. It is protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass 4. The screen of the Zoom is brighter and punchier than the screen of the ZenFone 2 . Viewing angles are also good. Problem is cut-throat competition in and around this price point.

Samsung's Galaxy S6, Huawei's Nexus 6P and Motorola's Moto X Style all come with QuadHD screens. Two out of these -- Galaxy S6 and Nexus 6P -- come with AMOLED panels that show brighter and better saturated colours with deep blacks.Even though IPS panels are known for better colour accuracy, the screen of the ZenFone Zoom tends to show slightly warmer colours by default. Turning the display settings to vivid -- and/or manually altering hue and saturation -- however gives you better results.

Software

The Zoom runs Android 5.0 Lollipop-based ZenUI. It is disappointing that the phone ships with a dated version of Android Lollipop at a time when Marshmallow is making headway in at least two phones in this price range: Nexus 6P and Moto X Style. Top that with bloat overkill, and it seems Asus is frozen in time. A dated version of Android with excessive bloatware in a Rs 40,000 phone isn't such a good idea, any day.

The phone comes with a bag-full of proprietary Asus apps along with a few third-party apps. While practically all of the third-party apps on-board can be uninstalled, the company's own apps can only be disabled. The fact that an app abundance of this magnitude does not affect the user interface is noteworthy and speaks in volume of the effort put in by folks back at the company, still Asus should work on bringing some order to the whole system. The ZenUI maybe smooth and lag-free for the most part, but all that clutter could be overwhelming for many users, especially first timers.

A number of key pointers that are worth mentioning are: the UI gives you lots of options for customisation (themes, icon packs and more); swiping down from the home screen opens a Google search window wherein entering keywords gives you relevant results, it suggests trending searches as well. Further you can also search for specific apps on your phone using this window. Also, there's an option to password protect specific apps on the phone. The phone will automatically click a selfie of someone who types in a wrong password to access the protected apps, which is kind of cool.

Performance

The ZenFone Zoom comes with a 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3590 processor coupled with PowerVR G6430 GPU and 4GB of RAM. This is the same hardware that powers the company's top-tier ZenFone 2. It comes with 128GB (112GB available) of internal memory which is further expandable by up to another 128GB via microSD card.

The Zoom is a classic case to prove how more cores does not necessarily mean better performance and vice versa. The Moto X Style , Nexus 6P and Galaxy S6 have hexa-core and octa-core processors inside (albeit with 3GB RAM), yet the performance of the ZenFone Zoom is in line with all the three phones mentioned here. That's when two out of these three phones (Nexus 6P and Moto X Style) are running stock and near stock vanilla Android. The Zoom with its heavily bloated yet lag-free UI gives more or less similar results if not better, which is fantastic. At the same time, Intel's CPU powering the Zoom isn't prone to heating as Qualcomm's chips inside the Moto X Style and Nexus 6P. It occasionally gets warm when subjected to long periods of gaming, but nothing that is alarming.

While basic tasks are handled well by the device, 4 gigs of RAM give it abundant multitasking potential. At a time, we had more than 20 apps running in the background (including graphical games) and the phone still showed no signs of slowing down.

The PowerVR GPU on-board makes the Zoom a fairly decent gaming device, with occasional hiccups while playing demanding games like Asphalt 8: Airborne and Implosion at high settings. Still, those instances were rare and the phone fared well while gaming majorly.

The Zoom comes with a single speaker vent on the back and offers excellent audio output. While lacking in depth of say HTC's BoomSound speakers, the speaker on-board the Zoom gets surprisingly loud. More importantly, the output isn't muffled even when the phone is kept back facing down.

Phone calls made with the ZenFone Zoom are of excellent quality and we did not encounter any odd call drops on our review unit. The device supports 4G LTE (Cat 4).

Camera

The ZenFone Zoom sports a 13-megapixel camera on the rear with a Panasonic SmartFSI image sensor (10 HOYA lens) that supports 3X optical zoom which can be digitally extended to 12X. As such, its aperture ranges anywhere from f/2.7 to f/4.8 depending on the zoom. The rear shooter also comes with optical image stabilisation (level 4), laser autofocus (fast focus in as low as 0.03 seconds) along with dual-colour real tone flash. There's also a 5-megapixel camera on the front with f/2.0 aperture and wide-angle 88-degree lens.

Unlike previous attempts like the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom, the Zoom employs a periscope type lens so that all the zooming in and out happens internally without the lens having to stick out. This is how Asus was able to cram in 3X optical zoom inside a 12mm body. That said, 3X optical zoom inside a smartphone isn't exactly what you can call ground-breaking. The Galaxy K Zoom, despite the fact that it had a protruding lens made more sense courtesy its 10X optical zoom. Hype it all you want but 3X optical zoom on a phone doesn't necessarily mean that it would replace your DSLR anytime soon. Of course, Asus thinks that it can.

Let's start with the basics then. To begin with, the rear camera is really fast to focus (even under 3X zoom, although image quality may vary) but the same cannot be said about its shutter speed. No matter how, when and where you shoot, there's always a slight shutter lag, which could be frustrating at times when you're looking to get a quick picture. The physical shutter and video buttons are a pleasure to use, and chances are you'd end up using more of them once you get used to the sheer size of the phone. The camera app takes an odd second or two to snap open -- using the physical shutter -- when the phone is in locked state, but at no point do things get awry. In the same way, the volume rocker can be used to zoom in and out. It's convenient but also comes at the cost of speed over regular pinch to zoom.

The camera app itself is pretty stacked in terms of user controls and modes. A fully dedicated manual mode -- along with a plethora of shooting modes -- means pros will have a good time with the Zoom. It's the other half -- which would be substantial -- that we dare say could be disappointed. The Zoom lacks a compelling auto mode that every phone camera enthusiast would love and appreciate. This is because there's a slight delay in practically every aspect of taking the picture (with the exception of autofocus) and to better things you'll have to dig in to tweak some settings. Moreover, instances like the app constantly asking you to switch to the low light mode even when you're out shooting on a regular day adds to its woes.

As for the pictures themselves, they come out pretty well with lots of detail and colours that are mostly true to source (oversaturated in some instances though) under good lighting. The phone particularly excels at taking macro or close up shots. As for the 3X zoom, it is wonderful in good lighting, however, there will be instances when it would fail to properly focus resulting in blurry images.

Pictures clicked with the Zoom using 3X optical zoom have slightly more detail when compared to using digital zoom on some other phone. Problem is, the results aren't exactly outstanding. Nothing like a certain Galaxy S6, or Note 5 or the Apple iPhone 6S can't already achieve using digital zoom. The problem is more aggravated when you realise that the Zoom is actually a 'camera' phone that costs Rs 40,000. The phone simply doesn't justify the same, despite its innovative genius.

More worryingly the ZenFone Zoom struggles in low and artificial light. On almost all occasions in such lighting, it clicks grainy (and often soft) images.

And did we mention, the phone does not do 4K? That's unforgivable for a phone that puts a great deal of emphasis on camera prowess. 1080p videos shot with the Zoom however come out with lots of detail in good light. The level of detail does take a toll in low light situations. Thankfully, optical image stabilisation does a good job in keeping things steady and well within focus on most counts.

The selfie camera on-board is good, but more often than not it results in washed out (or soft) images, even in good lighting thanks to the in-built beautification mode. Toning down the settings gives slightly better Facebook and Instagram friendly images.

Battery

The Zoom uses by a 3,000mAh battery and supports Asus' BoostMaster fast charging technology that can charge the phone from 0-60% in just 39 minutes, according to the company. And it does. The thing charges like a bullet, much like the Moto X Style.

Battery life is average at best. We subjected the phone to almost three hours of 1080p video playback, one hour of music playback, half an hour of graphics intensive gaming, phone calls to the tune of one hour over 4G and some web browsing. We also clicked some photos with it. This gave us close to 14 hours of battery life on the device. Extreme usage (that included a mix of 1080p video playback on loop along with some high-end gaming) gave us close to 8 hours. Most users with more typical workload will be able to get close to one full day, but always keep your chargers around.

Should you buy it?

The ZenFone Zoom is easily the most innovative phones that Asus ever built. It is also the sexiest and most premium offering from the company ever. Top that with good all-round performance and some well to-do camera gimmickry and you have a flagship phone that looks good, feels good and works just fine. But, not everything is hunky dory. And it has a lot to do with the Rs 37,999 price tag. We are not saying that the Zoom doesn't justify its price. It's just that at its price, the Zoom cannot afford to play safe. It cannot fall short. Sadly, it does.

Phones like the Nexus 6P, Galaxy S6 and Moto X Style clearly have the upper hand in this price range. And these are not even 'camera-centric' phones for crying out loud. These are just flagship phones that also happen to click some brilliant photos. The ZenFone Zoom in such a case looks like the odd one out, even with all that 3X optical zoom. The ZenFoone Zoom is undoubtedly the best phone that Asus ever made. Sadly, it still isn't enough to upset rival phones. This one's just for the loyal fans.

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